Harry Barr was born in 1896 in London. Throughout his long life he was a passionate artist. He produced a large body of work, the majority in watercolour.
He studied at the Westminster School of Art where he was taught by the artist Walter Sickert and gained his diploma in 1915. Sickert remained an artistic mentor and a friend until he died in 1942. He was also good friends from childhood with David Bomberg (they both grew up in Whitechapel in the East End of London) until Bomberg's death in 1957.
Harry Barr's first exhibition in London was held in a Bloomsbury gallery in January 1920. Later in that year he moved to Paris. In Paris he was taken under the wing of the sculptor Ossip Zadkine who helped him find a studio. He had his first exhibition of oil paintings in Paris at the Galerie Mouninou on the Rue Marbeuf.
Watercolour became his main medium around 1939. He focused on painting nature. Among his most frequent subjects were trees that often took on an anthropromorphic character. He painted all manner of landscapes and seascapes, always painting outside regardless of the weather. He also had a great fondness for animals, spending hours drawing at London Zoo. A particular favourite, pigs were often the focus of a painting expedition - he was not shy of getting into the sty to paint them[1].
He had various exhibitions in London, one notably at the Kaplan gallery in 1965. This exhibition caught the attention of art critic Max Wykes-Joyce whose write up in the Arts Review[2] stated that Harry Barr's "work can be compared with the best of British watercolourists, past or present". In the same year an exhibition of 80 paintings was held at Friendship House in Moscow. This was recorded as the first one man show of a British artist in the USSR. The exhibition was well received and was extended from an original two to six weeks, showing also in Leningrad and Minsk.
Harry Barr resisted pressure to join any of the English art movements. His painting was a direct expression of himself - vital and impulsive. He was a colourful character described as the "Cassius Clay of art" in the Daily Mail[3]. He continued painting until his death in 1987 at the age of 91.